Practice Management Alert

Question: I have never heard of taxonomy beyond the categorization of species, and now I’m finding out that CMS has a taxonomy of providers. What does this mean?

South Dakota Subscriber

Answer: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) categorizes providers by classification and specialty via 10-character alphanumeric identifiers. Any provider who wants to receive reimbursement from Medicare needs to have and know their taxonomy code — a provider must have this code in order to apply for a National Provider Identifier (NPI) code.

You can find the 10-character code for your particular classification and specialty here, https://taxonomy.nucc.org/. It’s important to be as specific as possible in your search, because the taxonomy is very specific. For example, there are different codes for hospice and palliative medicine providers depending on whether the provider works in family medicine (207QH0002X), emergency medicine (207PH0002X), or anesthesiology (207LH0002X).

These codes are usually updated in January and July, CMS says.